


Five Music Lessons

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Music, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 15:09:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4353752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock teaches Uhura to play the Vulcan lyre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Music Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lah_mrh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lah_mrh/gifts).



It’s only when the music stops abruptly that Uhura realises she’s been humming along again. She looks up. Spock is raising an eyebrow at her, in that way he does.

‘Don’t stop on my account,’ she says.

‘Your use of harmony is… distracting,’ he tells her, with an edge of sternness and a sliver of what, if you know him well, might be teasing.

‘Oh? How so?’ she asks, coming to lean her elbows on the empty chair opposite him at the rec room table where he’s practising.

‘It is inconsistent with Vulcan musical theory,’ he says.

‘Perhaps if you taught me some Vulcan musical theory, I’d be able to hum along better,’ she says, grinning.

He tilts his head. ‘Perhaps. Sit here. I will show you.’

She takes the seat next to him, and he puts the lyre gently in her lap. She moves her fingers across the strings, and they make a pleasing sound.

‘Tell me something, Mister Spock,’ she says. ‘How is it that a people with no emotions can make such beautiful music?’

‘Beauty is subjective,’ he says. ‘Vulcan music is mathematically perfect. Perhaps, for humans, that is beautiful.’

‘Perhaps for Vulcans it is too,’ she teases.

He doesn't dignify that with a response.

* * *

They meet once a week to practise. She picks the basics up quickly, he tells her - for a human. That makes her laugh.

‘I’m naturally musical,’ she tells him. ‘And my fingers are flexible from working the communications console. It plays to all of my skills.’

‘That is apparent,’ he says, as she reaches the end of the piece she’s been learning and stills the strings with the flat of her hand. She beams triumphantly.

‘All right,’ she says. ‘Give me something more complicated.’

* * *

Her fingers tangle again, creating a jangling discord that makes her wince.

‘I can’t do it,’ she says. ‘I’m never going to get it back.’

‘It took you many months to learn, the first time,’ he says. ‘It may take you many months again. But it is within your capabilities.’

She lays the lyre down on the table, even though she would like to throw it against the wall. ‘But what if it isn’t? What if I just can’t do it any more?’

It’s a conversation she’s had dozens of times about dozens of things over the last few weeks, since Nomad, since she lost herself. She’s doing much better now, she knows. She’s on duty again, and she can hold her own even if her fingers and thoughts are slower than she knows they used to be, even if she has to work with the manual loaded up beside her to make sure that she doesn’t make mistakes. Inch by inch, she’s getting there. But she knows that it used to be effortless, and it makes her want to cry. Someday she might be as good again as any communications officer in the fleet, but she’s still not sure she’ll ever be as good as she used to be.

‘You have already made significant progress,’ he tells her. ‘You must have patience...’

‘I don’t want to have patience, I want to have it all back the way it was!’ she snaps.

He just looks at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sighs. ‘I’m just frustrated, I suppose.’

‘An understandable reaction.’

‘Would you play something for me? I’ll try again later, I promise. For right now, I just want to listen. I want to enjoy the music.’

‘Very well,’ he says, and he plays her favourite songs for a long time after their lesson is supposed to be over.

* * *

He only teaches her Vulcan music. That makes sense, she supposes. That’s what he knows. And, for the pieces that are designed to be sung as well as played, she enjoys learning the Vulcan lyrics. It’s good for her pronunciation.

Once she’s good enough, she starts to transpose some Earth songs so that she can play them on the lyre. He’s indifferent when she shows them to him, begrudging when she suggests they learn them together, but once or twice in the next few months, she swears she hears him playing them when she walks past his quarters in the evenings.

* * *

She still can’t quite look at him without something tightening in her chest. He was dead, and now he’s back again, looking just the same as he always did. She doesn’t exactly believe it, but there it is, and there he is, looking quizzically at her as she stands in the doorway to his temporary quarters at the Selaya temple.

She holds out the lyre. He looks down at it without so much as a hint of recognition.

‘It’s your lyre,’ she says. ‘Uh… you left it to me. In your will. But I guess it’s yours again now. I thought I’d bring it to you. I thought it might help you feel more at home, while you reacclimatise.’

‘Thank you,’ he says.

He still doesn’t reach out to take it. She knows his reactions are still a little slow, so she brings it into the room herself and puts it down on the table.

‘You taught me to play,’ she says. ‘Do you remember?’

He frowns, and it’s a long time before he answers.

‘Yes,’ he says at last. ‘Yes, I believe I do remember.’

She smiles at him. ‘Do you want to try to play?’

He sits, takes the lyre in his hands. Then he just stares at it.

‘Like this,’ she says, her fingers gliding over the strings.

He copies her, but the notes clash. He frowns like he knows it.

‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘There’s plenty of time to learn again. Why don’t I just play something, for now?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Please.’

She takes the lyre from him and starts playing the first piece he taught her. Recognition lights his eyes.

‘You know,’ she says as she plays, ‘it’s probably not ever going to be quite the same - but I promise it’s going to be all right.’


End file.
